039. FUNDAMENTALS OF CULINARY CULTIVATION

The text was written in bold calligraphy that retained a surprising amount of gravitas despite all the sauce, tea stains and subtitular margin notes that crowded the pages.

INTRODUCTION

Congratulations, Fellow Daoist! If you’re reading this, you’ve taken your first real step on the path of culinary cultivation. You have managed what many would-be chefs never manage at all: you have managed to begin at the beginning.

[“And sometimes the beginning involves explosions!” - WokAndRoll

“Or setting your eyebrows on fire!” - SpicyBoi

“Or both!” - HoneyPhoenix

“Tian Lin, why are you still writing in this? You moved out!” - CulinaryPolice

“Because I'm a SUCCESS STORY, who likes to remind her BEGINNINGS OF HERSELF!” - HooneyPhenix

“Herself of her beginnings, you mean?” - ImmortalWord

“I meant what I said!” - HoenyyPhoneix]

Ming Shi smiled. The beginning. He liked the sound of that. A nice clean start.

As if sensing his train of thought, A’Nuan looked up and let out an extra loud simmer–purr of approval.

Now let’s talk about what you’re actually doing when you cultivate.

THE FIVE PRIMARY ELEMENTS OF CULINARY CULTIVATION

Fire. Water. Wood. Metal. Earth. Every dish you will ever create, from the humblest street snack to your Imperial Exam submissions, draws upon these five Primary Elements. A night-market noodle cart and the Celestial Silk Kitchens use the exact same building blocks of culinary cultivation. They just combine them in different ways.

Building blocks. Huh. Funny they put it that way.

That reminded him …

He closed his eyes. Liu Baozi had excellent recall of everything except the black hole of his thirteenth year. It was another one of those perks of being born at Foundation Establishment.

Now that he was a cultivating chef again, he was able to access those memories even more vividly. All he had to do was focus, and it was as if he was there, inhabiting his former self, both the vessel and the voyeur.

Building blocks … building blocks … aha …

He saw them and reached out.

***

He was tiny. The world was huge. He lay on his back on a soft, silky cushion in a crib with scalloped-pearl sides. The sides emitted constant, gentle steam that blanketed him in a cozy mist.

Above him floated five stars.

They shone down, just out of reach, each with their own color and light pattern. The red sparkled, the blue shimmered, the green pulsed, the silver glinted, the golden-bronze flashed. He reached for them with chubby baby fingers. He wanted to put them in his mouth. They felt very delicious-promising.

The red one was his favorite. No, the bronze one. Actually the green. And blue. They were all his favorites. Even the silver one, which was his least-favorite favorite, compared to the red one which was his favorite favorite.

He giggled and reached. The stars danced away. He reached harder. They spiraled higher.

Why?! He wanted them so badly! If no touch-letting, why delicious-promising?! He burst into tears.

The stars floated down and did a thing. It was funny. They each cajoled him in their own way. Such fun, funny feelings—warm tickles to his sides, cool strokes of his forehead, nice apple smells, jingly bell chimes, rhythmic back-patting. It was funny and felt nice, so he forgave them. He giggled and reached.

They darted away.

He reached harder …

… They flitted higher.

Tears!

Comfort.

Giggle. Reach.

Escape!

Rinse (with tears) and repeat.

He giggled and reached and cried and reached and giggled and reached and cried and reached …

This continued for ten million eons.

(It was twelve months.)

One day, the stars fell into his lap.

When they landed, they weren’t stars anymore. They were blocks. Smooth blocks that felt like polished jade but retained the colors and light patterns they’d had as stars.

Success! Now he could eat them!

… Or not?!

They kept slipping from his fingers like wet soap.

He pounced. He fumbled. He dropped them. He pounced. He fumbled again. They scattered across his crib.

!!!

Incoherent fury. Redoubled efforts. Torture.

The blocks tortured him for TEN THOUSAND YEARS.

(It was five minutes.)

This …

THIS WAS UNFAIR.

BAD! BAD! BAD!

Little Liu Baozi erupted into howls. Spewing snot and tears, he alternately kicked and clawed at the stupid blocks which he wanted so badly but also hated them because they wouldn’t let him which made him feel worse, made him feel bad, made him want them MORE.

WHY?!?!?!?!

Thus occupied with his first existential crisis regarding purpose and the meaning of life, he hardly noticed that the room had suddenly filled with excited murmurs as two large figures hurried in.

In their presence, lights flared, illuminating the previously dark room.

“Oh, little dumpling,” his mother laughed, picking him up. “You’ve only just arrived at them! Congratulations! Smile! Why are you so impatient?”

“Most children take months to grasp them,” his father added, tickling his feet. “It took me eighteen months to pick up a block, and my parents had to get me training mittens—”

Little Liu Baozi kicked his father. His screams went up ten decibels and two octaves.

“Oh no, no, poor dumpling,” his mother soothed. “Don’t let Father scare you. It won’t take that long. You won’t need mittens. You’re a genius like me, aren’t you?”

She bounced him in her arms.

“It only took Mother eight months. You’ll grasp them in eight months, not eighteen. There, there. Shhhh, shhhh. Eight months, yes?”

His mother and father laughed.

Laugh? You dare laugh?!

Eight months? EIGHT MONTHS?! That was FOREVER INFINITIES!!!

How DARE they think this was funny? It wasn’t funny at all!

Liu Baozi was so offended by everything that his howls Ascended.

They transcended noise and became silent.

They became a force powering his fury.

He glared through his noiseless tears at the blocks in his crib.

Stupid blocks. Stupid, slippery, delicious-promising blocks.

He stretched out a hand with all his might and opened his mouth in a wide, soundless, Ascended howl, and—

Tasted?

Something bitter?

Smoke. It was the taste of smoke, which he knew because of all the tasting menus his parents fed him—little bites from a diminutive silver spoon with a tiny scoop the size of his big toe.

The red block came into focus.

Had it been blurry before? Apparently.

He thrashed his arms and legs and dove out of his mother’s arms back into the crib.

His hand closed on the red block. It stayed in his hand.

Exclamations filled the air, but he didn’t care. He was too busy licking the red block.

Bittersmoke taste. He liked it.

He grabbed the other blocks. Golden-bronze! Silver! Blue! Green! He had them all!

More figures had entered the room.

“Remarkable!” someone gasped.

“From arrival to grasping in less time than it takes for an incense stick to burn!”

Liu Baozi ignored them. Now that he had the blocks in hand, he wanted more. He just wasn’t sure what more was.

He put the red block on top of the gold-bronze block. It slid off.

He frowned.

He tried again, with blue on silver.

They repelled each other.

He let out an annoyed sputter.

“Baozi,” said his father, reaching in, “you’ve just started. Why don’t you take a break and play later—ow—!”

Liu Baozi bit his father’s hand as it encroached on the red block. He glared.

“Aiyo,” laughed his mother. “Someone needs to go back to bed. Dumpling, be good. Let Mother take the blocks for tonight—”

She stopped abruptly.

Liu Baozi had licked the red block again. Then he licked the gold-bronze block.

He stuck the gold block on top of the red block, joining them where he’d licked.

They stacked. Yummy. Satisfying. He giggled.

Exclamations.

“Stacking! Already! Incredible!”

He licked the silver, stuck it on top, licked the blue, stuck it on top, licked the green, stuck it on top.

Delicious.

Laughing, he admired his five-block tower.

Wait.

It felt like the red wanted to move.

He pulled it from the bottom of the stack, licked it, and put it on top.

The exclamations were non-stop now.

“Generative cycling! Unbelievable! Prodigious!”

He ignored them. He was busy. The blocks kept wanting to move, so he moved them. Bottom to top, bottom to top, bottom to top.

Good! Good! Good!

So fun and delectable.

A shadow fell over him.

He looked up.

It was Uncle.

Liu Baozi liked his uncle. Uncle came to see him almost every day and read to him from the Book of Ascension, which was extremely boring and had recipes that did not feel delicious. But he also fed him the most fun-tasting menus, with interesting and unusual tastes.

Usually Uncle had a grin on his face.

But now his face was twisted and scrunched. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Weh?” said Liu Baozi. He understood words and could think with them too, but his mouth muscles moved so much slower than his thoughts, so his tongue tripped a lot.

“Sshhhubuhku?” he said.

“Elder Brother …” his mother said hesitantly, “are you ... crying?”

“Yes!” Uncle sobbed. “Why aren’t you?”

“I mean ... why are you?”

“Because! At last! An ambitious Liu has appeared! A Liu besides me has ambition!”

The room filled with laughter.

“THIS ISN’T FUNNY!” Uncle wailed. “THIS IS A MIRACLE! HEAVEN HAS EYES! MY NEPHEW HAS AMBITION!”

Liu Baozi felt sorry for his uncle. He knew what it was like to be stuck with people who kept laughing at something not funny.

He wanted to pat his uncle on the back and say “There, there” like his mother did with him.

But Uncle was so very tall. How was he supposed to reach Uncle?

He looked at his stack of blocks.

Oh!

When they were stars, they made him giggle with funny feelings.

The gold-bronze one. That one did the back-patting. He picked it up and chewed on it and tried to find the back-patting feeling.

He found it! But it felt super heavy. Too heavy for him to move.

What about tickling? The red one gave him warm tickling feelings. He snatched it up and gnawed on it.

He tasted the warm-side-tickling feeling right away.

He giggled and sent the taste-feeling to Uncle.

Uncle’s robes went up in flames.

Cries and gasps.

But not from Uncle.

Uncle was no longer crying.

He was screaming.

“You dare?!”

Uncle raised his fist.

He punched down.